The most dilute mixture Hurl could manage on the spot did the job. She gave Sunny the nod and he levered a knife-blade into the wood surrounding the lock-plate. It gave like wet leather. He had to fight a bit at the end to open the door as the planks were thick and the acid barely weakened the innermost finger's breadth. All the while Hurl covered the alley with her crossbow, wondering why they weren't yet full of arrows. This wasn't how she'd be guarding some kind of secret meet.
Sunny hissed to wave her in. She pulled the door closed behind them. They were in a thin passage between crates and barrels piled almost as high as the ceiling. The light was a weak wash of distant lanterns and starlight from high barred windows. Glaring, Sunny raised his knife. Pitting and staining marred the iron blade. She shrugged, mouthed, ‘Shoulda used an old one.’
Sunny took breath to snarl something but Hurl motioned to the maze of passages ahead and that silenced him. Grumbling far beneath his breath, he took the lead. Hurl smiled – just the way she wanted him for a fight, feeling ornery.
Voices murmured ahead from the dark. They edged closer. Hurl's back was on fire now. No way they should have been able to get this close. They must be walking into an ambush. She was about to signal Sunny when he stopped before a turn in the passage. He pointed up. Hurl studied the stacked crates – possible. It looked possible. She let her crossbow hang from the strap around her neck and one shoulder. She unpinned and dropped her cloak. A twist and the weapon hung at her back. Sunny covered her while she heaved herself up to the first slim ledge.
The climb itself was easy but she took it slowly, trying to be as quiet as she could. As it was, she was sure everyone in the blasted echoing warehouse heard her. At the top she lay flat, surprised that no one had been there to greet her with a thrust in the face. Where was everyone? Had they called it off?
While Sunny climbed Hurl unslung the crossbow and exchanged the bolt for one set with a sharper at its head. Reaching the top, Sunny crouched, drew his twinned long-knives. The crates rocked and creaked alarmingly beneath them. He lifted his chin to the centre of the long barn-like building and carefully made his way forward. Hurl followed, crouched as low as she could. The rafters loomed from the dark just above. They stank of tar and dust and bat droppings and trailed cobwebs that caught at Hurl's shoulders. Talking echoed from below much more clearly now; she could make out the odd word, recognize Storo's voice. Sunny lay down at the cliff-edge of their long rectangular island of stacked goods. Hurl lay beside him, peeked over the wooden lip.
In a central cleared square of bare beaten earth the Captain was leaning on a barrel and facing two men and a woman. No one Hurl knew. To her they looked seasoned, especially a silver-haired Dal Honese fellow as broad across the beam as they come. ‘Captain now, is it?’ the big Dal Hon was saying. And he whistled. ‘My, my. Coming up in the world, are we?’
The Captain was just looking down, giving his half-smile, and rubbing his hand over his nearly bald head the way Hurl knew he did when he was dismissing what you're saying but didn't want you to know it.
‘I would have seen you a commander, Storo. You know that. A Fist even. We reward talent. That's our way. If your father hadn't gone down off Genabaris he'd be standing here right now saying the same thing.’
‘She has talent,’ the Captain said, still looking down. The three strangers exchanged glances. The woman signed something to the Dal Hon fellow. Looking closer Hurl saw that though slim and sword-straight, she was an older gal herself. This crew was what in Imperial service everyone referred to as Old Hands and the little hairs on Hurl's arms prickled at the thought of just what they might be facing here. And what of the Captain? He knew this crew. Just what had he been hiding all this time?
The Dal Honese hooked his meaty hands under his arms, sighed. ‘Look, Storo. We need to know tonight. Now. For old times’ sake we've gone out of our way here. But all that only goes so far. We want you – could really use you – but we need to know.’
The Captain pulled a hand down his face to rub his unshaven jowls, grimaced. He shrugged. ‘I think you know the answer already, Orlat…’
Orlat! Familiar, thought Hurl. She just couldn't place it. In any case, Orlat was nodding. He looked genuinely regretful himself. ‘Yeah. I know. I was just hoping you'd come to your senses. I'm sorry it has to be this way
‘So am I, Orlat. So am I.’
The man and woman with Orlat disappeared. Hood take it! Old cadre mages! Six swordsmen entered the square to take Orlat's side, hardened veterans every one of them. Rell stepped out of the dark to take the Captain's side. Neither Storo nor Orlat moved a muscle. Six veterans! This could give Rell a run for his money.
Then the needle point of a knife touched Hurl's back and she flinched. ‘Turn around real slow,’ someone said from behind. Hurl hung her head – the Lady's Pull! She rolled on to her back. A little runt of a guy dressed all in dark colours knelt over both her and Sunny. Twin long blackened poniard blades hovered a finger's breadth over their vitals. ‘Now,’ this guy said, and his lips pulled back over grey rotting teeth, ‘you got just one chance to give the right answer to the question-’
And darkness opened up, swallowing him. And he disappeared. Hurl looked to Sunny, blinked. ‘Well, I guess we'll never know what the right answer was.’ Silk floated up from within the crates. ‘Where'd he go?’ Sunny asked him.
Silk smiled and winked. ‘Elsewhere.’
‘What's the plan?’ Hurl whispered.
‘Living through the night. The exits are all sealed. Open a way out to the riverside. We'll keep them occupied.’
‘The riverside? Why there?’ But Silk was already sinking from view. Ym busy, he mouthed and was gone. Sunny crawled to another edge, waved Hurl over. She threw herself down next to him. ‘This is bad. Real bad.’
‘Yeah. We'll be dead any minute for sure.’
‘Wonderful.’
He motioned to the stacked crates and barrels across the narrow passage. ‘Have to jump it.’
‘What?’ But the fool was already backing up. ‘Listen, let's talk about this-’ Sunny kicked himself into a run and the crates swayed beneath them. As he took long strides to gather speed Hurl suddenly remembered just what he carried snug in the pockets of his cloak and vest and bags. A vision of the entire warehouse and surrounding buildings disappearing in an eruption of light froze her. Sweet Twins, no! She flinched away.
A crack sounded as Sunny jumped – the release of a crossbow – then a crash of him lying dead flat on his back on the crates that rocked, creaking and scraping against one another. Swords rang from the dark below followed by a gasp and panting and Hurl knew that couldn't be Rell because he never made a sound when he fought, ever. She peeked down to see Rell holding off four remaining soldiers while the Captain was drawing his sword. Orlat's gaze was narrow as he watched Rell's form. ‘No sense making this any harder than it has to be,’ he told Storo, though he sounded less sure of himself.
‘That's what I was thinking,’ answered the Captain.
Hurl backed up and ran for the gap. The crossbow on her back slammed her down as her feet hit the crates and that sent her face-first into the unfinished wood, knocking the breath from her. The side of her face scraped raw. Finding her breath again, she touched her cheek and came away with blood. She sat up to see Sunny holding his leg from which a quarrel jutted. Shit.
‘That was not a nice trick your friend pulled,’ a familiar voice called from across the way. It was Runty the Knifer, back from who-knew-where. He jumped the gap with ease, came down standing. The crates rocked beneath them all like a lazy sea swell. ‘But I got friends too. Now, where was I? Oh yeah,’ he raised his knives. ‘Killing you two.’